And a Ryan spokesman said: "The speaker is grateful for the support, but he is not interested. He will not accept a nomination and believes our nominee should be someone who ran this year."

That puts it more strongly than what I've seen from Ryan. Yesterday, for example: "I'm not running for president. I made that decision, consciously, not to. I don't see that happening. I'm not thinking about it. I'm happy where I am, so no."

That seems to leave the door ajar. I say "seems" because I don't know the precise question that's getting the "so no."

It's the Return of the undead Bush. A rumble comes from deep in the Skull and Bones crypt and out comes a Neo Bush held up by High Priest Karl Rove and clasping another $150 million of new Donor Cash to his bosom.

Ryan was my prediction for who the Red team would select as the nominee at the start of this race. My reasoning was that they always pick the next in line. It was a long shot pick, especially after he said wasn't running, but if I am right in the end then I expect you all to acknowledge my greater wisdom. He will, of course, lose in the general, possibly after some rioting.

Whatever I may think of Trump & Trumpites, I gotta admit: I loath the man's enemies even more. A lot of folks on the Right & Left are showing their true colors, and it ain't a pretty sight to behold. It's a lot along the lines of "Oh, I'm okay with the democratic process, as long as it's going my way..".

I say the same thing to Boehner as I said about the Lefties interrupting the rallies: Do not fuck with the Trumpites. Do not poke this bear. If Trump wins the nomination, he wins. If he loses to Hillary, he loses & in four years the Repubs try again. If Trump wins the Presidency, he'll pick his advisers from the same pool of advisers as the other candidates. If he's a doofus, in four years, we get to kick him out.

But, do not not poke the bear. Heed the words of old Nestor in the Iliad:

Brotherless, lawless, and homeless is the man who longs for horrible civil war.

I'm not a hater of Paul Ryan like some here. But he had nothing to do with the presidential campaigns up till now. If there's going to be a ticket that takes on trump it needs to be based on people who were in the race to begin with.

What this primary season has shown is that there are no rules anymore. There's a reason the number is 1237. If you ran and didn't get to that threshold, we could argue that you've already been rejected by a majority of the voters and have no more right to the nomination than anyone else. Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Condoleezza Rice, Carly Fiorina, Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush, George H.W. Bush — anyone is fair game. None will have been as repudiated by the voters this election cycle as the nominees who did not reach 1237.

That said, Cruz is incredibly savvy with his ground game and his tactics. He will end up being the nominee, because the party rightly will ignore the idiotic claims that a plurality is actually a majority, and follow the will of the people to not nominate Donald Trump. Trump will lose the nomination to someone who will be a better deal maker. And those of us who hate him and everything he stands for, and have searing contempt for those who tried to inflict him on America, will appreciate the delicious irony of the Art of this Deal, and never stop smiling. Even if Hillary wins, because we know that there's no way Trump would have beaten her anyway.

"What this primary season has shown is that there are no rules anymore. There's a reason the number is 1237. If you ran and didn't get to that threshold, we could argue that you've already been rejected by a majority of the voters and have no more right to the nomination than anyone else. Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Condoleezza Rice, Carly Fiorina, Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush, George H.W. Bush — anyone is fair game. None will have been as repudiated by the voters this election cycle as the nominees who did not reach 1237."

But by that logic, who is a better representation of the party's wishes than the person who got more delegates than anyone else? Anyone else they pick would be definition have been less accepted than the plurality delegate winner.

You're accurately describing the rules, and technically, the party can do just that--consider a lack of a majority of delegates as a sign that the voters didn't really decide, and pick someone either through horse trading or "consensus" (though there won't be a consensus in this party this year). But it'll leave the largest block of primary voters feeling shafted.

And who could they pick? You suggest Cruz, but in this scenario he'd have fewer delegates than Trump. And someone like Paul Ryan who didn't even run--I can't imagine the reaction to such a thing.

I stand by my prediction that Trump gets nominated, via a deal with Cruz for his delegates. A lot of Republicans won't be happy with it, but they'd better hope they can cobble enough together to fight off Clinton. Already it's an uphill battle.

"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above. They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."

rcocean (1st comment):Sorry, but no. If Trump shows up with 40% of the delegates, they don't have to give him the nomination. If he is the 1st choice of 40%, but the 2nd choice of nobody, and if Cruz is the 1st choice of 35% or even 30%, but the 2nd choice of 25% or 30% more (including, I imagine, a lot of the Trumpsters), there's absolutely nothing unjust about Cruz winning the nomination on the second or later ballot. If no one wins on the first ballot, they don't have to head for the vape-filled rooms and ignore the delegates. What they're supposed to do is take turns giving speeches and changing minds until someone wins. Kasich and Rubio and anyone else with delegates (I suppose even Bush has 3 or 4) can tell their delegates how they want them to vote, but no one has to listen to them. K & R can also stay in and try to get Trump or Cruz voters to come over to them, but they risk embarrassment if their delegates abandon them. That's a contested convention, and should be loads of fun - entirely different from a brokered convention, where RNC tries to dump Ryan or Romney or someone on us. I don't see how the latter could work: even if (e.g.) Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich agreed to drop out and told their delegates to vote for Ryan or Romney, I don't believe the delegates have to listen. At least, I hope that's not how it works. With the anti-establishment vote (Trump + Cruz) running something like 80% in the primaries (sorry - too lazy to check the exact number) they (delegates and RNC) would be fools to try to dump both. Quite a few of them are fools, but surely not all of them. It does pretty much have to be Trump or Cruz, unless someone else starts winning primaries real soon.

Ryan was my prediction for who the Red team would select as the nominee at the start of this race...He will, of course, lose in the general, possibly after some rioting.

ABout 5% or 10% of the electorate will defect, but maybe Democrats can defect from Hillary Clinton. This, or something like this could actually be the best shot - otherwise the Republican Party is already checkmated. It's got to be the right person - it can't be Romney.

The analogy I heard on the radio last night (I don't remember the speaker) was to overtime in a professional game (football or something with "sudden death" rules)--if you go to the end of regulation tied up then you get to overtime. The rules of overtime are different, and it's no good saying they're not fair or you SHOULD have won in regular time if we were measuring something else (time of possession, total yards, etc) instead of the score. Since you didn't win in regular time you just have to accept the overtime rules. Part of the convention rules is that after the 1st (or maybe 2nd, I dunno) ballot if there's no winner then most of the delegates are free to vote for whomever they want. Those are the overtime rules.

It seemed like a decent analogy if your goal was to convince others that it's morally valid to end up with a nominee who didn't have the most delegates going in to the convention.

I stopped being a Ryan fan, he is just another conventional opportunistic politician.

I can't recall another so I'll give Ryan credit for creating the new niche of the passive-aggressive opportunistic politician.

You know I don't want to be vice president I just want to be home to see my kids...Speaker? That's not a job I would ask for or wish upon anybody, but if asked...People say, 'What about the contested convention?' I say, well, there are a lot of people running for president. We'll see. Who knows?

@ Brando I mentioned yesterday that I now think it will be a Trump/Cruz ticket. Great minds. Anything other than Trump or Cruz - depending on the rest of the primaries to provide the leader - and the R's are just handing it to Hillary (and I will have to agree with several here who call the R's the party of stupid).

The only way either Trump or Cruz is the nominee is if they get to 1237 before the convention. People seem not to understand that the delegates are local party apparatchiks and are (depending on the state) only "bound to vote for the candidates who "won" them on the first ballot. Almost all of them will be actually selected in party conventions at the state level that are controlled by the state party apparatuses.

If nobody has 1237, they will vote for who the party leadership think gives the party the best chance of winning or at least not being blown out in a loss. That isn't Trump or Cruz. They will willingly sacrifice the White House to a 69 year old woman with health issues if they can preserve the Congress and governors' mansions. They will be happy to ride out what is sure to be an underachieving 4 years and hope that no more SC justices die.

Ryan said exactly the same stuff, almost word-for-word about not wanting to be Speaker, too. I wouldn't bet against Paul Ryan beating Herself, either.

This thing is a long way form over and nobody is on pace to get to 1237. Trump is actually the weakest frontrunner in the history of the Republican party. McCain already had a majority of delegates by this time in 2008 and Romney was just marginally away from it at this point in 2012. Trump is very weak and Cruz in't much better.

The party will take it's chances on the "Trump voters" going back to being disaffected non-participants rather than lose a landslide that costs the Congress, if at all possible. They'd rather lose a narrow election without the Trump people than get crushed with them. It's only common sense to realize this.

"Logically, Republicans at the convention should do whatever will maximize the Party's chance in November, but would they go so far as to appease Trump to do so?"

Assuming Cruz doesn't rapidly pull ahead, I don't see how they have a choice. They decided (in the '70s I think) to let primaries determine their nominee, with tweaks (winner take all, proportional, Rule 40) over the years. If Trump is the choice of more GOP voters than any other candidate, it'll be impossible to convince his fans that he would have lost if he only faced one opposing candidate instead of 15 from the beginning (and the fact is, if the anti-Trump opposition couldn't unite around one candidate early enough for it to matter, that's on them). It would look sneaky if he lost simply because other candidates shared their delegates to defeat him--much as I detest Trump I can sympathize with his fans in that scenario.

If they did try that, he'd likely run as a third party candidate but even if he didn't somehow, what's the chance of getting his fans behind the nominee? Either way would be trouble for November.

For better or worse, he's got to be their nominee (again, barring a wild Cruz surge from here on out). Perhaps if he doesn't have a majority of delegates, the other candidates could trade them for concessions (e.g., Cruz for VP which is most likely) but he has the leverage here.

It may not matter much in the end anyway, though--the Dems have a pretty large coalition and much as Clinton will do nothing to inspire them (and turns off moderates), they will unite against Trump. The question now is will events intervene (indictment, terror attack, financial collapse) to change the board.

All of you people who are "jes fine" with any result that does not see Trump nominated has just boarded the good "Ship of Fools." ONLY TRUMP will be able to attract enough of a cross-over vote from disgruntled blue-collar white democrats to defeat the Hildabeast. Additionally most here seem to ignore Trumps strength among blacks (who are just now realizing how bad they've had it under Obama and how badly they are being hurt by illegal immigration) and Latinos, Filipinos, etc., who are here legally (and despise illegals.) Trust me, by wife is a flight nurse and has worked at almost every major hosp in LA, Oakland and SF since Katrina--a goodly cross-section of CA minority voters-- and what she hears from the med-techs, RNs, LPNs, "of color" etc., is NOT the picture the MSM paints or would have one believe. Most are Trump supporters..

PS: And of course I failed to mention the Trumpites who would sit on their hands in droves on election day were he not the nominee, thus ensuring a Donkey win and a SCOTUS of the US that will drastically change America for the next 100 years--and not for the better.

"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above. They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above."

Dear John,

That's how I will vote, "none of the above", if you broker the convention. And I don't support Trump. But I'm sure sick of the kind of rule changing, back room dealings insider baseball that led to (e.g.) Obama Care. And I'm sick of guys like you and Mitt injecting yourselves so blatantly into trying to derail the leader of the primaries of your own party.

"ONLY TRUMP will be able to attract enough of a cross-over vote from disgruntled blue-collar white democrats to defeat the Hildabeast."

I think pulling the nomination from Trump would cause a damaging split, but I don't think blue-collar whites voting for Hillary would have happened this year at any rate. They've been steadily moving away from the Dems for decades, and with her racialist approach Hillary had given up on them anyway. She may have figured they don't matter--if she gets big enough margins among racial minorities and white collar, suburban whites (as Obama did) she could replicate Obama's victory.

"Additionally most here seem to ignore Trumps strength among blacks (who are just now realizing how bad they've had it under Obama and how badly they are being hurt by illegal immigration) and Latinos, Filipinos, etc., who are here legally (and despise illegals.) Trust me, by wife is a flight nurse and has worked at almost every major hosp in LA, Oakland and SF since Katrina--a goodly cross-section of CA minority voters-- and what she hears from the med-techs, RNs, LPNs, "of color" etc., is NOT the picture the MSM paints or would have one believe. Most are Trump supporters.."

Well, I'll believe he's going to do well among those groups when I see it. Republicans have been talking for decades about how they were going to improve their numbers with blacks and Hispanics (because of abortion, school choice, prayer in school, gay rights, etc.) and it hasn't happened yet.

"That's how I will vote, "none of the above", if you broker the convention. And I don't support Trump. But I'm sure sick of the kind of rule changing, back room dealings insider baseball that led to (e.g.) Obama Care. And I'm sick of guys like you and Mitt injecting yourselves so blatantly into trying to derail the leader of the primaries of your own party."

I think it's one thing for Mitt et al to express their displeasure with Trump--after all, Republicans have long expressed their displeasure with nominees they weren't happy with--but if the primaries are to mean anything the results have to be taken seriously. A backroom deal to shut out Trump, if he leads in delegates at that point, would symbolize everything that even anti-Trumps have come to despise about establishment politics.

Bad enough that the Democrats are doing this to themselves--the GOP shouldn't follow their lead. If you can't in good conscience vote for Trump, that's fine (it's on him at that point to try and win people into the fold, or win without them); but if he won your party's nomination it's his.

I understand the convention rules and the first ballot issue -- no problem. If Trump comes in a hundred short, for example, and loses on the first ballot, how do you sell Trump's tremendous voting block on a Kasich-Cruz ticket? Or even worse, a Romney-Ryan ticket? That assumes two items: that "they" want Trump voters and realize that "they" cannot win without a substantial plurality of the same.

I ask this because I have plenty of Trump supporters as friends and acquaintances, and I may need the ammo this summer. I assume that "Fuck you, you racist bigot -- those as the rules!" would not be of sway.

Today I heard Michael Medved telling a female caller if Trump doesn't get the nomination, the voters voted and most voted against Trump. Therefore it's perfectly fine for the nomination committee and delegates to pick anyone they want.

I'm so tired of hearing this "Voted against" meme.

I'm for Cruz, but my vote for Cruz isn't a vote against anyone else. It's not a vote against Trump, or a vote against Kasich or Rubio. It's a vote for Cruz.

@eric: One of my pet peeves this season -- I don't remember that formation ever before. It's absolutely dishonest and harmful, and it's just another way the GOPe earns its stupidity title. I don't like Cruz using it, either.

"I don't think blue-collar whites voting for Hillary would have happened this year at any rate. They've been steadily moving away from the Dems for decades, and with her racialist approach Hillary had given up on them anyway. ""'They've had little reason to vote at all until Trump.

"Today I heard Michael Medved telling a female caller if Trump doesn't get the nomination, the voters voted and most voted against Trump."Medved is an open-borders absolutist. Like a lot of open-borders conservatives, I don't think that he actually likes Americans very much.

Advice from Hilaire Belloc, "The Modern Traveller" - for whom, I'm not sure.

We did the thing that he projected, The Caravan grew disaffected, And Sin and I consulted ; Blood understood the Native mind. He said : " We must be firm but kind." A Mutiny resulted. I never shall forget the way That Blood upon this awful day Preserved us all from death. He stood upon a little mound, Cast his lethargic eyes around, And said beneath his breath : Whatever happens we have got The Maxim Gun, and they have not." He marked them in their rude advance, He hushed their rebel cheers ; With one extremely vulgar glance He broke the Mutineers. (I have a picture in my book Of how he quelled them with a look.) We shot and hanged a few, and then The rest became devoted men.

"Michael Medved telling a female caller if Trump doesn't get the nomination, the voters voted and most voted against Trump."Most voted against Rubio, Kasich, Cruz, Carson, Bush, and Fiorina, as well.I haven't listened to Medved in years.I bet that he supported Rubio.I wish him well with his cancer.

"The fundamental problem for the GOP with blacks is that the black middle class is based on government job.

The black lower classes depend on welfare, just as Johnson predicted in the 60s.

Black Republican tend to be military and small businessman, both fairly small slices of the black demos."

It seems more widespread than that--when white voters lean a fair majority towards Republicans, and black voters go 9/1 for the Democrats (even when the nominee isn't Obama, which would be understandable) I think there's something more at work than economics. Somehow, the notion of voting for Republicans seems unthinkable to a lot of even middle class blacks. For Asians and Hispanics the numbers aren't good either, but not nearly as skewed as the black vote.

Dems say it's because the GOP favors anti-black policies (criminal justice, voter laws, affirmative action) but I think there's something more deeply cultural about it. The trend began in the 1930s and grew steadily over the years--even when Eisenhower was on the ballot (and he supported civil rights legislation, while the Dem ticket had segregationists in the VP slot, twice). Perhaps it's because the GOP is seen as the "less government" and "less federal power" party, and blacks have long assumed it was the government (and federal government in particular) that protected them from private discrimination (even though at least at the state and local level, government perpetuated it). It'd be nice to see a non-partisan study on what's at root there.

"blacks have long assumed it was the government (and federal government in particular) that protected them from private discrimination (even though at least at the state and local level, "

I agree but much of this dates from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and from Kennedy's smart move to call King when he was in jail in 1960. Nixon also wanted to do so but was dissuaded, a terrible decision when many blacks, including King's father, were still Republicans.

If Mr. Trump fails to win on the first ballot, he can then persuade other delegates to vote for him. For some reason everyone is assuming that he would not win the second round. Under Rule 40, no one can be a candidate for nomination unless they have certification that a majority of at least 8 state or territorial delegations are voting for him which means that most likely Senator Cruz and Mr. Trump will be the only ones going into the convention who meet that criterion.If there is a second vote, that criterion still has to be met unless they change the rules (which is very possible) so it would be a contest between two or possibly three candidates. The kicker is that there are no rules against bribery or the use of any persuasion short of assault (although that may occur in the convention) to change the mind of the delegates. Mr Trump is more likely to be able to do that than the Cruz coalition and unless there is a rule change or a very well organized third candidate (I doubt that Gov. Kasich is that well organized), Donald Trum still has a good chance of winning the nomination.

The progressive socialist supporters of the Democrat Party have shown already that they will use violence in their efforts to stop the Republicans from gaining office.

Why not extrapolate their behavior in Chicago, and understand that if Trump wins, he will be assassinated by someone on the left? And Cruz? He's worse than Trump, and more likely to be assassinated, because he is a conservative and a Christian.

Hence Ryan might become president without having to campaign. He is only two deaths from the Oval Office, sitting in the Speaker's chair.

This is all immaterial, of course, as Hillary is ready to steal this election and cannot lose unless dead or in jail. And might could win even from a cell.